Paint the white flowers red
by SILENTSANCTUARY
Summary: The misinterpretation of colors. Rated K Alice meets Iracebeth, the Red Queen, and mention of Mirana, the White Queen. Enjoy!


NOTE: I watched Alice in Wonderland the other day, and like I promised, I came up with a fanfiction. The text has a lot of meanings related to the movie, it may seem short and simple, but it takes some time to sink in.  
This takes place when Alice was just a little girl in "Wonderland," which in case you haven't noticed, but it is also called "Underland" too.  
Enjoy!

* * *

White flowers always annoyed Iracebeth, maybe because they were so reminiscent of her sister who was as pure as the white that stained those poor helpless flowers colorless. That is the reason why when she encountered such flowers, her instant reaction was to crush them underfoot or with a quick twist between her forefingers. It always made her wonder why she was able to kill lesser white flowers, when she couldn't bring herself to kill the whitest flower of them all, her sister Mirana.

Her parents always planted white flowers in favor of red ones. That annoyed Iracebeth greatly, because she was a rather avid reader and she had read that in otherworldly cultures, white was considered the color of death and bad luck, while red was favored as the color of prosperity and good fortune. In Underland however, she thought when she shut the book, it was the polar opposite. Maybe white was really the color of death, but has been propagated by her sister as the color of pureness. Such misinterpretation of colors rather infuriated her.

So one day while passing by the forest seeking refuge from her parents' constant adoration of Mirana, she happened to pass by some white flowers that had somehow escaped from the gardens and rooted themselves here. Nose wrinkling in disgust at the horrendous color, she caught a single bloom by the nook of her heel and crushed it until the head laid beneath her in its broken glory.

"Don't kill it," a voice behind her reprimanded rather childishly.

Iracebeth swiveled around, and caught sight of a little girl in a blue dress timidly stepping forward to cup the head of the fallen rose in her hands. She stroked it rather childishly as if it was an injured animal rather than a useless plant that did not protest when she killed it. Suddenly Iracebeth felt a little bit guilty, although her narcissistic self convinced her that what she was doing was good, eradicating white flowers.

"Why not?" she said rather uptight, gathering herself in full regalia of red. "I'll kill them if I want to. They are the most unlovely shade of white."

"You do not like white flowers?" The little girl placed the velvet petals near her cheek and breathed in the aroma. "Don't you think what you are doing is a bit mean? They can't help being white."

"No." Iracebeth was starting to get furious rather than guilty or annoyed. Maybe it was with herself rather than the puny thing of a girl. "What do you know? You're just a little girl."

"Alice is the name," she introduced, curtsying a little, which made Iracebeth hate her even more. "What is yours?"

"You may call me the Red Queen," Iracebeth said, unfurrowing her red skirts like a pompous red carnation.

"The Hatter told me that there was a White Queen," Alice said, blinking confusedly at her with blue eyes. " I know of no Red Queen."

"I will be the Queen someday," she said sharply, turning red at the little girl's words. "And one day," she swept her hand across the forest. "All of these flowers will be red, regardless of the fact that they can't help being white or not."

"How will you do that, I wonder." Alice was suddenly curious, or rather intrigued by Iracebeth's rash and confident statements. Or maybe it was because Alice was still yet a child, and such bold ambitions fascinated her.

"That's easy," Iracebeth replied. "I'll uproot the white ones and replant red ones in their place."

"Why don't you paint the white roses red?" Alice suggested.

"What a queer thing to say." Iracebeth wrinkled her nose at the girl. "It will never work."

Alice nodded in her own defense. "Yes it will. Back in England, my mother would let me paint the white roses all the colors I wanted. She told me the only color I couldn't paint them was red, because she thought it was the color of blood."

"Your mother is a fool." Iracebeth said scathingly. "In some cultures, red is the color of good fortune."

"I'm sorry if I made you upset," Alice said, with a hint of empathy for her. She stepped forward in an attempt to console her, but Iracebeth roughly brushed her off, causing her to fall to the ground in a splay of blue cotton.

What Iracebeth really wanted to do right now was wring her little neck dry, for she hated her words that were far too intelligent for a girl her age. But Iracebeth was already turning around, and gathering her red skirts to return home. She didn't even look back to see Alice clutch her bruised arm, looking puzzled at her sudden departure.

* * *

Iracebeth would later become the Red Queen after the forced taking of the throne from her sister. If there was one weakness that she knew Mirana always had, ot was the inability to harm anything or retaliate on her own due to her personal vows.

It would be years before Mirana would find her champion, but in the meantime, her sister Iracebeth ruled over Underland with an iron fist, banishing her sister into hiding and forcing everyone under her command. It was better to be feared, she had once said, than to be loved.

The first thing Iracebeth did under her new power was to eradicate all the white flowers in the land, and replace them with new ones. When asked how she would prefer the task to be fulfilled, she ordered all of them to be painted red, the color of the new regalia.

Disguise them in the color of false fortunes.


End file.
